There was some gorgeous light last night, so I took my oldest child out in our back yard to take some quick photos before bedtime. DH is Indian, so I did a little ethnic styled shoot.

Since this blog is a little about my own photography journey, I’ll also share my unedited shot, and how I turned it into the final product.

First I copied the background layer. I cloned the scarf so it covered her shoulders. Then I made curves adjustment layer to darken the black. I masked out her skin, so only the background was affected. The background BTW is a large piece of black fleece fabric, bought on sale at a local fabric store. I made a levels adjustment layer to brighten up the skin and change up the contrast a little. I used the eye-dropper tool, selected the skin color of her cheek, and painted it on a new layer over the darker part under her eyes, and the redder area around the clip-on earrings. I selected and moved the red bindi to center it more. I then flattened the layers, and smoothed the skin. And last I sharpened it using an unsharp mask.
It really didn’t take very long, since I’ve been practicing my editing skills. Hope the direction made sense, because I didn’t do any screen shots. Perhaps some day I’ll do a tutorial of how I do my clean processing, but not today. It’s summer and I am enjoying time with my kids.